Sarah Carey

They don't get more kindness from other people.

And yet they will often draw back from being kind to others themselves.

And what are the barriers there?

So this is coming to the point on grief.

And he was saying that when someone is suffering, in order to be able to kind to them, you have to be able to cope with their vulnerabilities.

And we cannot cope with other people's vulnerabilities unless we're capable of coping with our own.

And the other one I think a lot about, I don't know if you've ever read the Varieties of Religious Experience, the William James book.

So he's Henry James's brother and known as the father of psychology and in Ireland.

I think it was 1905, he gave a series of lectures, the Gifford Lectures in the University of Edinburgh, where he took religion as his theme, but not in an institutional way, but about the individual experience that people have, you know, when they might have visions or a sense of God or prayer or things like that.

And it is just fascinating.

And he talks a lot about Tolstoy and this sense of those who are first born and those who are twice born.

So the first born are the happy minded souls and they just seem to get along through life and, you know, aren't troubled much by anything.

And then the twice born are the six souls who have experienced, you know, great trauma and suffering.

And I suppose you could describe them as those people, you know, who really hit rock bottom.

And Todd Stoy, of course, suffered dreadfully from depression at the height of his success.

And and then they emerged from that.

and find uh you know a new meaning in life most often in trying to alleviate the suffering of others and recognizing the suffering of others and those people are not afraid to get close and to come and sit with you and you're suffering and won't panic if it's three months later and you're still a mess

You know, so so it's often a little game people play.

You know, well, are you first born or twice born?

So I think a lot of us go into the twice born category.